Instant Messaging (IM) systems allow users to communicate with each other in real-time fashion. Traditionally, an IM conversation between two IM users takes the form of text messages exchanged between the IM users. To provide a more interesting user experience, many IM systems supplement a conversation by presenting non-textual information to the IM users. For example, a first user can select a type of global sound that is presented when any other user logs into the IM system. In this case, when a second user logs into the IM system, the first user is notified of the log-in event by the presentation of the selected global sound. In this case, the first user is dictating the sound that will be later presented to himself or herself.